As One Observes The Stars
by Ember Nickel
Summary: (Kink meme request:) From the Earth Diary of Combeferre-Esgarrouth-Isthill.


-The planet of Earth is subdivided into many various polities, many of which frequently make war on each other. The Yeerk campaign focused on the independent "country" of "France."  
-France is an entity with many impressive achievements, among them, the One Hundred Sixteen Earth Years' War, Voltaire and the Enlightenment, the Battle of the Pyramids, and the croissant.  
-The Battle of the Pyramids involved the armies of a certain Napoleon fighting soldiers from an area called Egypt, near some ancient pyramidal monuments. That the state of architecture had not progressed significantly in the intervening millennia since those were constructed seems to indicate that Earthers, or "humans," are a peacefully and slowly-developing race.  
-Yet, I have come to understand that they can be capable of great insight, and explosive development.  
-The planet Earth, and the Pyramids specifically, had been guarded until recently by a strain of androids known as the Chee. For reasons they refuse to disclose, some Chee followed the Napoleonic armies back to France, as if to watch over some of their war spoils.  
-The Chee are pacifists, and will try to alleviate the sufferings of humans when possible. One noble Chee, while attempting to provide food for an otherwise-helpless human child, found himself (in disguise) contravening a human law, and was thus captured by the French penal system.  
-Of course, due to their robotic strength, it was a triviality for the Chee to escape. However, they are hardwired against violence, and as such were recaptured several times, as they could not use force against their pursuers.

-I arrived, of course, on the Dome Ship _Fraternity_, yet the Yeerks outnumbered us in orbit. Almost all aboard the Dome Ship were destroyed, and I only escaped as an _aristh_, plunged into a body of water known as "The Seine."  
-How it is that this conflict escaped the attentions of the citizenry, I remain uncertain; I can only assume that those responsible for upholding public order make a point of avoiding looking at the stars.  
-I am given to understand that my brother, Prince Semoyloth, was fatally wounded in the fight. He survived, however, long enough to give the morphing power to a group of human youths. They heard my thoughtspeak cries and eventually rescued me.  
-That the humans, many of whom were quite willing to engage in armed resistance, had been gathered so coincidentally might seem the work of an Ellimist, or the ancient gods. I reserve judgment on this matter, but note that there was a history of civil discontent in France at that time.  
-Their antimonarchist sentiment created a point of contention, as their leader, Enjolras, refused to accept the honor of being referred to as "Prince."

-Attempting to engage the civil authority, demonstrating our capabilities and asking for assistance, was therefore complicated by my fellows' distrust of the chains of command.  
-It was in addition difficult to discover who had been infested by Yeerks.  
-The human named Marius was instrumental in this respect. He had astutely noticed a change in the demeanor of his friend, Eponine. Using his morphing power, he was able to become an insect and infiltrate her residence, where he learned that her parents were both Controllers. They seemed to have accepted this fate voluntarily, to secure the Yeerks' promise that their children would remain uninfested. We attempted to hide the truth of this matter from Eponine and her siblings for as long as possible.  
-Our security may have been compromised by the antics of Courfeyrac, who would on occasion turn into a large elephant to entertain several small boys. The Yeerks appeared not to make the connection between this display and the so-called "Andalite Bandits" (not recognizing that humans had been granted the morphing powers).  
-The humans prefer that I use only one name to refer to each of them. I do not think that there is much risk of this account falling into the wrong hands, however, humans are limited by their powers  
of vocalization and as such find it difficult to articulate long names such as mine.  
-To compensate for these weaknesses, some humans make a great habit of adopting slang. At least, in French. There is an amazing display of linguistic and cultural variation on the planet, far beyond the confines of our own city.  
-We became known as "the friends of the A B C," which is also an abbreviation of sorts. The human Grantaire underwent a similar corruption of his name, which he regards with good humor.  
-A similar, and ironic, fate befell our friend Bossuet, known as "l'Aigle." It was perhaps this coincidence which inspired him to take on the form of an eagle, a large Earther bird of prey. Unfortunately, when attempting to escape from the Yeerk pool, he was caught longer than two Earth hours and became a _nothlit_.  
-Why it is that exactly two of these Earth hours should function as the timeframe for loss of demorphing capabilities puzzles me. The other humans are not so interested in exploring the scientific explanations of this matter. The Chee is somewhat more helpful, postulating a divine sort of providence.  
-As for Bossuet, he handled this surprisingly well, claiming to never have had much of a home anyway, and immediately began lodging with his _shorm_, Joly, where he would take up less space than a mammalian roommate.  
-Joly is a student of medicine, who was able to access many specific tools. On occasion he would even come up with an animal to experiment on, which we would all subtly acquire before carrying out his research.  
-While Eponine was not directly informed of our presence, we did have one young woman associated with our society. Cosette, who was being brought up by the Chee, learned of us while Marius was in consultation with him, and while she had not been part of the political movement, she eventually acquired the morphing power. She proved to be a successful spy, as well as an _estreen_.  
-The Yeerk pool was entered through the sewers. While we might have been able to obtain access as humans (or as an eagle or Andalite), using morphs was by far the more preferable option, as the sewers of Paris are in a painful state of filth.  
-Marius' grandfather was very old for a human, and while Marius no longer lived with him, he was concerned that someone who did might have been a Controller. Supposing he took ill, and could not leave the house for three days? At times like these we would trust in Cosette to console him.  
-As for Marius' mother, she had been gone from his life for many years. He believed her to be dead.  
-This belief, while well-founded, was erroneous.

-At times I thought Prince Enjolras could have become my _shorm_; for being a human, he was committed to the causes of bringing justice to his portion of the galaxy.  
-Still, his insistence on making war scared me. We chanced to discover a Yeerk infesting a young girl, who apparently had seen Grantaire morph drunkenly and Enjolras intended on executing the both of them.  
-(The Yeerk and her host. Not Grantaire. Although he would have been secretly relieved to be rid of him, too.)  
-Cosette was able to commute this sentence into starving her out, with Bossuet and I keeping guard—we had little else to do.  
-Others would join us, sometimes, with the students able to impersonate each other in class. Courfeyrac in particular did not tire of morphing into his fellows, although Prince Enjolras seemed to disapprove of this tactic as well.  
-He also still disapproved of me referring to him as Prince.  
-Gradually, the Yeerk explained that she was part of a movement pushing for peace. Cosette was overjoyed: surely that had to represent proof that we needed not resort to force? Enjolras was completely suspicious.  
-I managed to placate him with the thought that, were the Yeerks truly facing internal crisis, he would have more freedom to concentrate on the political aspects of his cause. This eventually forced his hand, and we let the peaceful Yeerk go on the condition that she set her host free at the first opportunity.

-Cosette and her spying kept us informed on any unusual incidents around her Chee guardian.  
-She mentioned that he was followed every so often by a police inspector. At first, he refused to tell her if they knew each other or what was going on—ageless robots tend to think of all us biological creatures as short-lived, and we needed to convince him that she was in fact mature and capable of making her own decisions.  
-Finally, he mentioned that there had been a certain inspector Javert who had known him when he was in jail, and was responsible for hauling him back after numerous escape attempts. That, however, had been well before Cosette's time, and (said the Chee), it was completely impossible that the same inspector would be obsessive enough to follow him all that time. Why, he hadn't seemed to have aged a day! And it wasn't like he stuck around that long, anyway.  
-Cosette intuited that something was up, and arranged to follow the inspector in morph when she got the chance. Of course, Marius immediately volunteered for this mission as well.  
-Sure enough, they began to suspect something was up when they realized that "inspector Javert" wasn't seen in public for more than two hours at a time. A more involved scouting mission required several more of us to take turns spying on him. Eventually, in insect morph, we realized that it could only be the Abomination; the Andalite-Controller who had shot my brother down.  
-We had engaged the Visser several times in subterranean combat; he had acquired a _Kurtinad_ from the Tesol System, which allowed him to quickly maneuver through the sewers. So the fact that he had a human morph, while frustrating, was not an overwhelming surprise.  
-It was not until we continued to follow him as a human that we saw something very unexpected; he was deep in argument with another Visser, that one a genuine human-Controller. None of us recognized her, of course, except for Marius—it was his human mother, who had disappeared when the Yeerk got a high promotion.  
-He was impulsive, wanting to charge in there and free her right away. Courfeyrac had to talk him down, while I tried to analyze the situation some more. What did it mean, to have these two highly-ranking Vissers so at odds? Marius' mother, Visser Three, craved open warfare, but "Javert"—Visser One—preferred a more subtle approach. Infiltrate their institutions—political, educational, religious—and the humans would flock to you. Perhaps it was his host's craving for the law that gave him a preference for order, perhaps it was just a coincidence. Either way, we were lucky they didn't effectively join forces. There were not that many of us, and we would have been easy prey.  
-Only Prince Enjolras came away from the encounter excited. Two enemies were, in some sense, better than one. You could play them against each other.

-I do not want to make it sound like this was only unending war on two fronts. For me, it felt like that sometimes, far from my own scoop and my own people. But the humans did their best to keep me entertained.  
-The wonders of human food are endless. Indeed, many of my first encounters in the sewers nearly pushed the two-hour mark as my human friends convinced me I was not allowed to savor the culinary pleasures to be found therein.  
-Although madeleines are extremely pleasant, the croissant represents the highest form of progress yet achieved by this immature civilization.  
-In addition, some of the students enjoy drinking wine. This is a chemical that produces pleasurable sensations, at the temporary loss of some forms of executive control.  
-Sadly, the effects are diminished as I can only enjoy it for two hours at a time. But I would watch the others, when we were sure no one would see us.  
-Grantaire in particular is fond of consuming wine. The ideals of revolution do not appeal to him, and I am unsure what brought him across the path of these "friends." Perhaps it is a human instinct.  
-To clarify, my human morph is the result of a _Frolis Maneuver_, combining the DNA of several of my human friends. At that time we had not yet met Cosette, so all of my DNA is male. But even though I can take on a human form for a short time, I do not experience all of the immediate interests they do, while my desire for consuming food through the opening known as a "mouth" is obviously heightened.  
-One night, Grantaire told me that when all the fighting was over, I ought to let Prince Enjolras visit my home planet when I return there. I was surprised by this, as Grantaire did not tend to share the instinctual Andalite optimism towards the future. When I asked him to explain, he told me that sometimes he thought Enjolras would be happier on another planet anyway.  
-I informed him that, should peace between the Andalites and humans last, there would surely be a market to export wine and other fine delicacies to the Andalite homeworld, and that he himself could come too. He seemed to like this idea better than eating grass.  
-I was often hungry in the city, far from the rich grass of other parts of the planet Earth. I tried not to let my human friends know. They were busy caring for the well-being of their fellow, hungry, humans. But sometimes I would morph bird and fly out from the city some distance, just to graze.  
-I know this was a security risk, but I still don't think anyone ever saw.

-I did not expect to receive spiritual guidance from a robot, but perhaps I should not have been surprised. Who, after all, can be so frank about the reality of intelligent design?  
-Of course I do not mean to dispute our well-supported knowledge of evolution. Nor do I intend to imbue the process with more teleology than is fit. That the range of species on Earth—the soaring eagle, clambering elephant, unobtrusive insect—seem so apt for their purposes and ours is a judgment of sentient creatures like ourselves.  
-Nevertheless, I have faith in all sorts of progresses, bound together. The interwoven need to climb from fighting to peace, distrust to brotherhood, ignorance to knowledge.  
-To this I add, hesitantly, hierarchy to equality. After all, even we Andalites are guided by the Electorate, on behalf of the people.  
-Though it was distressing to realize that, after so long listening to the students' political uproar, I would likely no longer fit in among my own people, should they ever reach Earth.  
-And what if they were to "quarantine" us as they had the Hork-Bajir homeworld? I need not ascribe much intelligence to the bladed creatures to recognize how out of place they seemed in the cages on Earth, beating the bars and frightening their human counterparts.  
-It must have been strange, to be enslaved by visitors from another planet when they were so incapable of even terrestrial flight. Of course, the horrors of Yeerk infestation would make the agonizing reality clear, but what did the humans consider them at first? Some kind of supernatural demons?  
-The Chee and I kept tabs on several religious institutions. In part because they would have made fearsome rallying points for the Yeerks, with their attention to ritual and widespread influence on the populace.  
-And, in part because their faith echoed in us: a leveling of all barriers, among time and place and species, a pointing towards the infinite.

-We were outnumbered greatly on all sides. Though the people of Paris might have risen up and overwhelmed the National Guard, they were difficult to rouse, content with the state of affairs as they found them. And, of course, the Yeerk force far outnumbered our own, even with the morphing technology on our side.  
-Prince Enjolras was convinced that we needed to combine the two fights, rather than alternate between one scuffle at a time. Steal a Bug Fighter, use that technology to topple the monarchy, install a new government that could warn the people about the Yeerks, and then...?  
-That would only work if Visser One's subterfuge was allowed to carry the day. Open warfare, of the kind Visser Three craved, would prove disastrous. Despite our numbers, their technology could level much of France and leave host bodies to spare in the rest of Earth.  
-Only the Chee would stand a chance of hacking into their systems, but Enjolras refused to ensure that this technology would not be used for violence.  
-Among the humans, there was one military leader who both the bulk of the citizenry and the student ideologues held in respect, a certain General Lamarque. He had been a successful warrior in a previous French conflict, but by the time of my arrival, had aged greatly. We spied on him, confirming that he was not a Controller, but he was still too old to be a political force. When he contracted a serious illness, it seemed that his death was imminent.  
-Which was precisely the excuse we needed.

-Word came out that General Lamarque had passed away, and an elaborate funeral procession was arrayed. People of all walks of life came out to mourn their hero; students and children, laborers and guardsmen, Controllers and criminals. The circumstances were ripe for rebellion.  
-Two notable Controllers, however, were not present. Monsieur and Madame Thenardier had been secured by Marius who was keeping them under guard and threatened to kill them if the Chee would not follow orders. A crude sort of blackmail, but it sufficed.  
-Eponine had almost certainly been responsible for this. A few choice words of "there is a delicate favor I might ask of you, it may even be at risk of your life" from Marius, and she had been disturbingly happy to comply and arrange in the hostage-taking.  
-While Marius stayed behind and guarded them, we waited for the tensions of the procession to build to a head. Various cries interrupted the dignified proceedings, flags flashed out of the corners of our eyes, carts stalled in the mud, the governmental forces tightened their grip on their weapons. At last, Prince Enjolras gave the signal.  
-A figure rose out of our little cluster, slowly at first, then taking shape. He was an old man, but hale, and his voice carried throughout the crowds. "Citizens, to me! Are we not brothers in one nation?"  
-General Lamarque lived yet.

-The Yeerks in the crowd were as confused as any of us. They did not know whether to support the government or the rebels, the stunned bystanders or the groups forming around Lamarque.  
-What they also did not know was that we had given him the morphing power, several days before. Just as remorphing could heal wounds sustained in battle, it also cured him of the human disease he had contracted.  
-So while several of us surrounded Lamarque to secure him and organize the tentative uprisers, the others snuck away to the elaborate coffin, which actually contained little more than a Chee hologram.  
-The Chee thus disinterred, we turned our attentions to remotely disabling the nearest empty Bug Fighter. By that time there was one unoccupied ship within range, as the Yeerks were realizing that Lamarque must have been morph-capable and turning their attentions to the barricade Prince Enjolras was constructing.  
-I stayed with the Chee, assuming my technological prowess could prove decisive in handling the Yeerk security codes. Sure enough, we were eventually able to hack our way into the ship.  
-With the cloaking ability on, I flew above the city to inform Marius that the Thenardiers were free to go, and that the Chee had done all it could.  
-As I made my way toward the castle, ready to manifest the ship and intimidate the monarchy into standing down, I was hailed by the onboard transport system from a Yeerk craft. At first, I assumed they were bluffing and did not realize I was an enemy, but I came to realize it was in fact Visser Three.  
-We agreed that Visser One's hopes of subtlety were dashed. I could level the palace, and the streets surged in uproar. We were the ones who had defeated her rival, and with her rank and the Council's favor, she could deliver him into our hands and leave Earth, focusing on another system.  
-The chance to avenge my brother gripped me, but a moment later I thought of how I had learned to love these humans, despite their alien nature. Could I condemn another planet to Visser Three's tyranny?  
-Could I _not_?  
-Stalling for time, I flew towards the barricade to consider the situation. My human friends were being overwhelmed, Jean Prouvaire already fallen and the others desperate to hold on.  
-It was Enjolras who came up with an idea, thought-speaking his suggestions to me from within the morph.  
-I noted that it was not the most straightforward method of achieving progress. He told me I didn't have to carry it out, that he could think of some other way.  
-I thought it over. ‹No, your plan is wise.› I paused, then checked myself at the last. ‹Enjolras, my friend.›

-I contacted Visser Three and agreed to her terms.  
-For the most part. She did not understand why i coerced her to take a new host.  
-But Marius, and Cosette and the Chee and, dare I hope, some of my other friends will survive this encounter. The chance to reunite with their family is the least I can give them. In building a new and free government, they may have the harder task.  
-Visser Three gave me the access codes to the Pool Ship, and for a time I pretended to struggle with breaching the final security protocols under the pretense of disarming the civil authority. The highest-ranking officials, as we suspected, had not yet been infested, and were terrified by the power I displayed in threatening the government buildings.  
-Visser One took advantage of this delay and, realizing himself (too late) that his plans were hopeless, instead turned his attention to rallying up as many troops as he could find for a messy, rushed assault.  
-Lamarque might have proven an attractive target. But in our short consultation, we realized that as a symbol for the average citizen, he was more famous and relatable than the students could have hoped to be.  
-And certainly, by far, more than an alien like myself.  
-So rather than use him as a decoy, we had given the order to have him gather the crowd around him, then remorph and lead them to whatever passed for safety.  
-Enjolras held the barricade to the last.  
-Humans would have words for this, but I am unused to their motionless, paper chronicles, when thoughts can fleet so easily between my comrades' minds and my own.  
-I believe he must still be pleased, to know he faced true enemies, not surrounded by apathetic citizens. That he would have had no compunctions at tearing apart enslaved Hork-Bajir, ready, like them, to die for his freedom.

-Finally, the laborious process of hacking the Yeerk electronics was complete. Fast enough to secure the Visser's Pool Ship, if not to save my friends.  
-I told Visser One that he need not be harmed. Surrender to us, let his host go free, and we would let him live. Andalites did not kill innocent prisoners. Humans would not either.  
-I may have been bluffing on the latter point.  
-But with several thousand of his fellows still in the Pool and effectively my hostages, he had little choice but to comply.  
-I say "little." He deliberated over this for longer than seemed necessary—what else was he going to do?  
-By this time I was already transferring the ship into the Chee's control, to the point where I really would have had little bargaining power should the Visser have changed his mind.  
-But he didn't know that.  
-I could just make out Cosette's thought-speak suggesting that the Yeerks become morph-capable and give up their warmaking. It is an intriguing possibility.  
-The future of interspecies relations on Earth will no doubt herald all sorts of technological leaps and bounds. In the absence of even any consistent electrical system, humans are naturally at a severe disadvantage, but perhaps they need time for their understanding to surpass their knowledge.  
-Suddenly, and surprising us all, Visser One hesitated on the banks of the river—not that it would have posed much threat to him, with all the aquatic morphs he must possess by now—and, too cowardly to face justice, slit his host's throat with their tailblade.  
-I did not have time to be bitter, though I would have liked to, only disappointed in the waste of life.

-In exchange for her compliance, of course, Visser Three, her new host, and her allied forces remained on the Blade Ship as it departed for Zero-Space.  
-They also remained on the Blade Ship when it returned into normal space, a mere several Earth hours later, and began accelerating back to the planet.  
-Fortunately, in collaboration with my friends, I had anticipated this betrayal. The delays in securing the Pool Ship were not due to any difficulty with her instructions, but rather my much harder task of working backwards to control both ships as well, without Chee aid, then sneaking onto the Blade Ship in insect morph in order to secure my own authority and lock out all other attempts.  
-Soon, the Visser will realize that her ships' weapons systems are no longer viable, nor will they be able to escape it.  
-Neither, consequently, will I.  
-This chronicle must therefore serve as my _hirac delest_. I assume by the time this message reaches the Andalite high command, the Yeerk threat on Earth will be at its end. Though the Republic of France and humanity in general are only perhaps a Level Four situation, I implore the Electorate to make contact with these humans, and any peaceful Yeerks working alongside them. Treat them as equals, not identical, but capable of greatness.  
-Particularly as regards the croissants.


End file.
